The full moon
was staring at me.
I felt it in Braille.
Thousands
of little raised dots
erupted on my skin.
I lifted my hand
to wave hello
& found it fisted
inside a puppet
that had a voice
of its own.
What they talked
about went in
one ear
& out the other
love is a lion
your head in its mouth
poetry in your throat
I was feeling down
it was Memorial Day weekend
and I just wanted to sit among nature
along with a hundred other dumb souls
nowhere to park, so I drove a little further down
it was the same story everywhere
so I kept driving
trying to...
is the day I find the wolves
you can count on that.
I will follow along
the s-curve of your path,
the one that pings
my search image
and has me jumping
sideways to avoid the sting.
Tomorrow the sky may be
empty but wild dogs
still circle and...
Tony next door is suddenly old
I saw him yesterday
curved behind
his slow lawn mower
and Eric across the street
rickety with his shovel
his wife, my age, a stickwoman
her nervous phone already at 9-1-
I wave first here
smile there
a little pageantry involved
walking my dog
my...
Carla at the Veterans Crisis Line
tells me she has never met with negativity like mine
I didn't tell her I've met plenty of cross-dressing sockcuckers
whose negativity outshone my own by miles & miles
Fuck, I'm just a putz next to some...
He pointed it out like a carnival oddity
a bearded lady or monkey playing guitar,
perhaps an albino deer or lion with the
head of an eagle. Or is it the other way
around? He used the tone saved for eyeing
celebrities where I...
knows
the
last
time
is
the
last
time
until
it
is.
was worse
than anything
he could have imagined,
but
he didn’t
want to dull it,
so
he put
aside the glass...
walked
out in the yard
and stared at the trees.
this time
by a
bird
whose aim
was more direct,
on target
and effective
than any of
the critics
who dislike me,
my poems,
my attitude,
my way of writing or
just my way of
seeing things.
this bird
should write
a book
and call it
“John Yamrus is in my sights...lean,
mean and as i see him”...
it’s
a little...
I mean, put my car in your pool
you know we are never going
to forestry school together
no food, no water
Omaha Beach ya know
my heart looks like a fish
out of it, I will build
a cabin in the wilderness
and touch your cat
which...
There are no words,
only eyes
in a silent world
where your presence is enough;
there is no time,
only pure promise,
memories like crumpled notes,
and empty sugar packets,
each with a story.
But there is night,
your metronome of breath,
the darkness like a womb;
and there is also...
too busy directing the marches
he'll watch you fall
smile as the nets fail
the audience gasp
and all that's left
when the clowns have gone
are the rabbits
no miracles, no hats
you mean it was the settings that were wrong
yes.
so, it was all your imagination?
yes.
I toss
my hat
onto the empty chair
next to me
i think
it was 1969
and we were sitting on
the floor in the front room of her house,
playing
records on the stereo.
i remember
playing Steppenwolf
and Simon and Garfunkle.
i remember
she had her shoes off
and was showing me her feet,
how they
were all messed up
(even at...
if you're reading this,
you've already felt it:
a tingle
an itch, an ache
you exist
in a kind of hollow agony orbit:
the cool knot pleasure, orgasm
of a burning log
if you're reading this
you aren't meant
for regular people
you spend your time
talking to yourself
talking to dead...
When the city's in trouble
beware the brooding hero
whose beacon burns inside his chest
to throw designs on nightly skies
to dazzle unprotected eyes
and wraps bleak wings of righteousness
about himself—as mask & shield
against life's slings and arrows
Who knows what empty vials reside
within...
Gaia speaks as Mother Earth, whispers softly to her child
Child answers Isis, goddess of trees and forests wild
Pachamama swaddles babe and holds him to her breast
Babe at the vast hillside, snuggles Demeter’s ample chest
Nokomis feeds a bounty, daughter of...
I drive the same route daily,
flip through the same stations,
but today all my radio presets
were phonemes and static.
I ruled out the weather,
because the sky was clear;
was it simply a loose antenna,
or something more serious
like a cyber attack
or an errant...
I'm addicted
to the abandoned rail trestle
over Grindstone Creek
it's far enough away
to be romantic
and it's in the woods
I go there, eat the lunch
I have brought with me
stuff the wrapper of my granola bar
into my pocket when I leave
I adhere to...
After this pestilence is over
if we are free again and I am still young enough
We will go back to my birth mountains of Albuquerque
and have a breakfast in the old Church Street Café
Hopefully Jose will come smiling and shuffling...
The next time I have
ringing in my head I’m not
gonna answer it
I think I’m tired when I retire,
I know I fall asleep.
Something’s wrong, I don’t know what.
I sit up wide-eyed wondering.
I check the locks, I pace the rooms,
I check the taps for leaks.
I check the knobs and burners
of the stove,...
A painting called Life
on a museum wall
after hours
hangs
lifeless.
The museum opens
people stroll
down the aisle
pause at Life
give Life
meaning.
Early May plums
the size & color
of green olives
are well hidden
among the emerald leaves.
In the next months
as they enlarge
& purple
& eventually fall
& split open
& when
the honey bees come
to drink plum wine
a praying mantis
will be standing
& slowly rocking
on the tree’s
tawny brown...
Awake and voracious ...
I feel like if I must violate the peace then so be it
jump in the word pile give off an inexpensive but loud bray
rebuild the dock with giraffe bones and nails made from the shadow of...
the peace
is as plentiful
as the water
surrounding
this city
moving away
from its bays
into its heart
blue-gray
permeates
and the eyes
are tempted
at every turn
to take in
the wisdom
that shimmers
under
its many bridges
Tank Girl - 1
Pencil, graphic ink pencil, coloured acrylic inks, ink brush, coloured pencils, chalk pastels, black ink on Strathmore Illustration Board - 42cm x 23cm
Tank Girl - 2
Pencil, graphic ink pen, acrylic paint, acrylic pastels, coloured ink on...
I tell myself
I am not as fat
as I look
& it’s true
I do tell
myself that—
because
I am a liar
a big fat liar
the scale agrees
fuck the scale
& fuck the mirror—
nobody asked you.
If I were an Orca
off the coast of Portugal
near the Straight of Gibraltar
I’d try to sink your sailboat.
How would you like it
if I hovered overhead
in your bedroom when
you were trying to make a baby?
I wished
to be forever happy.
It was granted.
Now I don’t know
what it means anymore.
Pencil, graphic ink pen, ink and brush on Daler-Rowney smooth Cartridge drawing paper - 52cm x 37cm
When I was nineteen, lost, alone,
depraved and often raving from
the lack of food and meaning,
walking the streets for days
on end after dropping out
of college the better to sink,
an old man stepped up to me
and said, “Don't look so down.
Hold...
Klint rubs his knife clean against his dingy shirt. He thinks I never notice blood, metallic taste that lingers from a kiss, or his hands wiped clean across my chin. I get caught on a phrase, where’s the cat…the cat..where...
You were dead, I'm certain.
I knew from the way we all
looked away from your bed
and into our phones. You sat up
and grabbed both my arms.
I have to tell you this
so it does not evolve
from dream to premonition,
you said, "I...
It was always
in cluttered antique shops
that my wife and I could get our fill
of nostalgia: where a 100-year-old typewriter
may sit atop a 1950s television set;
or the odd, single oar with a crack
down its middle would stand lonely in a...
I admire the fit of the monkey into the alarm
& the women who drive their obscene sofa trucks from mailbox to church
... well, this is notebook land, deadpan ghost railways
no one travels here without a blade somewhere on her...
We had goose bumps on our chocolate skin
because we weren't well dressed for the weather
We didn't think about clothes when we fled motherland
on aluminum wings
We had sunlight and rain
and crazy kings who turned our lands to killing fields
We wanted...
I sit on the balcony like a droopy shirt
and hope that I get assassinated
the green SUVS and white mini vans
pass by
with no understanding
of my ashtray stomach
and neutered heart
my couch is dead
and I have stolen my wife's iced tea
I guess...
and said "Maximalist" as if
it explained everything. I gave
her muffins with cranberries,
pine nuts, rooibos tea and dark
chocolate. I warned her
to duck so she wouldn't
hit her head on the hanging
colored glass, shooed the dogs
off the couch and lit a fire....
I’m not crazy
anymore
trying
to see myself
like you see me.
My reflection
bouncing off
the mirror
is no longer the me
who used to bounce
off of reality.
Still,
I think
you must be
meshuga
for wanting
to be seen
with me.
...the long wave swells and rolls towards my shore
sound is sucked from air
till only the subterranean roar
of a distant heart is felt
and breath is held prisoner
a gull breaks and wheels overhead
the wave rushes
i breathe salt and fire
tremble like stars...
I know where all the graves lie;
those of my father, mother,
close friends, acquaintances,
some uncles, some aunts.
My parents' I visit often,
the relatives' as often as time permits,
but those of the other aunts, uncles,
first and distant cousins, whose futures
and their seedling...
if you
were only
as thin as
one atom
one
wide
one
tall
one
deep
you can bet your atomic arse
electrons would still think you're fat
the house grows smaller
with each step I take
walls pinching in
a carnival room
your chair in its corner
worn like a molar
a trick you still do
blowing smoke from your ears
refusing to acknowledge
how old we have gotten
the moles on my back
growing swamp lilies
the...
A flock of Dunlins startle
rushing to rise
on a Merlin rumor.
Murmuring among themselves
when to shrink or swell
to foil an intrusion.
Summer speckled plumage
strobing
like northern lights on wings.
Conjuring
a mesmerizing spell
until it’s safe to feed again.
I let the date whisper through me
like slow bullets each year
I refuse to count
will not say it’s been howevermany years now
for time does not touch this one
I think it’s your turn now
I can’t keep it up trying to be...
HEYYYYYYYYYYY STUPID
HEYYYYYYYYYYY STUPID
the windshield wipers chant
as I battle the midnight rain
for a pack of Lucky Strikes.
"Everything's a metaphor," he said,
deadheading the rosebush,
thick gloves protecting him from its spite.
"Is it?" I asked, "Even us?
Are we just a metaphor?"
And though he didn't look at me,
I saw a smile tilt the corner of his lips
as he nodded.
"Oh...
They had deep dark secret day at school one time only. I don’t think they were prepared for the results that decimated the entire town, so many kids went into a makeshift foster care system that very night. It was impossible...
Winding towards Josselin
through woods
green as absinthe,
sharp as a lime slice,
I drop the roof
and speed carries
the smatter of rain
over the car and away.
Along the ditches
pollarded willows
are crazy for spring.
Wild cherries too.
Lordly over small holes
of navy shadow
the tall poplars
with their longer...
the air from the vent
suddenly shuts off
and now my thoughts
are so clear
I actually
have to deal with them
like a 20-foot rogue wave wall
appearing suddenly out of
a placid, gray-teal ocean
giving no time for fear
to be digested, nor for
comprehension to do its part,
heaving us up into the unknown
then dropping silently back down
which then just as quickly
moves on with...
We are under a spell today
the rules of gravity suspended
birds float through the fog
It is my eldest daughter’s birthday
and this is an all-day poem
a slow release
I remember the drive to the hospital
in a dawn so very like today
I...
my kitchen again --
the flash of sunlight
on the counter was you
and has me talking
to the sky
Machines under alarm
a squeeze from a warm hand.
A whisper—please don’t die.
I tried to reply
but got confused
in all the commotion
never noticing the shocks
from cold white paddle
only my presence losing modality.
I thought—this must be
how a raindrop feels
when it returns to the...
In Midnight's hour I take my tongue
and place it on the floor.
(It loves to run about and play
with Beetle, Dung, and Spore.)
Then Teeth and I sit back and smile,
enlivened by the show—
And laugh aloud when Tongue cries out:
“Oh, my!...
When distant wishes calling you
in breezes rushing off the bay,
return, as blush of deja vu,
of distant whisper calling you
to kisses spent at twenty two
which purchase now this windswept day:
insistent whispers hushing you
with breezes, shushing off the bay.
This shallow bay....
I slept in a small room
I dreamed there as a boy
the moon came & went
wind knocked on my windows sometimes
in the grass
in the fields between your house
and mine
a path began to appear
now an old man writes this
(Warning: Adult Content)
I was just
writing this poem
where I was going
on and on and on
when really
I just want to fuck
it’s spring
I’m frustrated
and I’m not
attracted to my wife
I keep seeing these strangers
that I am
attracted to
exotic
erotic
women
jewels of the street
that seem like they...
The annoying drone
a mile over the hill,
I-35 tinnitus.
It helps to pretend
it’s a waterfall or rapids
or squalling river valley winds.
At night
its white noise
puts me to sleep
and I worry
without it
I’ll never dream again.
I coaxed you into my life
like a wild animal and loved you too hard.
Like when the fox said to the Little Prince,
To you I am nothing more than a fox
like a hundred thousand other foxes.
But if you tame me,...
He conforms his tired bones
to the shape of a bed,
crosses his arms,
lets eyes
go to grey-
spinning the world
a needle grabs dust
on a vinyl LP,
no lyrics,
no melody,
but static
white noise
of an eternal note-
like a line beyond home
is his passage
through dogwoods,
forgotten memories
that exist...
When you get off the boat
your perception changes
You watch things more closely
Like my beloved old tree dying
I never imagined it would become dangerous
There was no silent scream from it
only the buzz of the chain saw
that sounded like thank you
The sky...
Lost at Sea
Alzheimer’s Pantoum
I first noticed when we sailed as we often did from Robinhood Cove to Bath.
A thick fog swaddled the boat, mist of the lost clung to our clothes,
a distant one note lullaby, the foghorn sung from...
The distance between us
is a giant red star.
The irregular shapes
of particulate matter-
drifting away. Your eyes
looking elsewhere.
he's out there now
row 2
forcing tines into the rain-packed crust
beating greedy roots against the fork
shaking loose clumps of soil and stone
salting the earth with his sweat
writing poetry in his head
cursing his balance
reciting his bodily mantra
of
press
push
flex
lift
turn
repeat
as i sit here
writing this
watching...
Another packing up dream
and we're getting good at this.
The embroidered table runner
goes beneath the bundled
purple china cow. As we add linens
to cushion around it, I can hear my
step-dad saying, "this will ride in church"
but then it's only you and...
I got a 10-gallon hat
But my head’s so fat
I can only put it on
1 gallon at a time
The limbo of estrangement,
the burden of a secret,
the fragile hope of a ceasefire,
the suddenness of endings,
the wisdom in not speaking,
spaces between music notes,
the stealth of moonflowers,
a final closing of eyes,
the default beneath everything.
And your relentless absence,
the most obvious silence...
at the beginning
it was mostly words
with which our minds
spoke to one another,
till some empty well
of curiosity had filled;
a wall of comfort
had been built,
word by word, but now,
after all these years
a mere glance, a quiet smile,
a subtle frown, or even
a...
Wild child.
Never mild child.
Shut the fuck up child.
Golden child. Scapegoat child—after while
—go to therapy child. What do you know,
child? After a while you don’t smile.
You hiding somethin’ child.
Make me laugh, child.
Why "doesn't you love me" child?
Trump country child. Stay...
Gray sheets of steel rain,
each drop a tap,
a strum, a drum
upon the metal roof.
A pickup band,
hard rock, a heavy
metal sound all
loud, distorted,
hoping to be
famous, to be
found.
on a motorized scooter
no purpose in life
mustard drips off his hotdog
This is the second time that Charles Bukowski appeared in my little magazine Clock Radio of the mid to late 1980s. He and I had struck up a fairly regular correspondence by this time, probably fueled in part by my...
I spoke for my sister on the occasion of her death.
I reassured the kindly and the concerned that I would
curate her memories. Yet, I did not find meaning or
meditative thought in my sister’s death. I did not enter
a state...
Running through tall grasses
glass jar in hand, cover off –
I can still detect a faint scent
of peanut butter wafting up.
He traps one first, a firefly,
lightning bug, mom calls it,
his lid on tight, holes punched
for air to get in, bouncing...
the world is spinning
into myth again and
all I can do is watch as
hummingbird nests hang
askew and all the fuchsia
gemstones buzz into being,
one by one. I await the splash,
the misstep, the comedy of
balance and bad luck. Falls
like common grief may...
Windsor & Newton Black Indian Ink, Manuscript black and white Dip Pen acrylic ink, Kuratake Black Sumi Ink on Strathmore Illustration Board for heavy wet media - 53cm x 30cm
it’s 75 degrees
the first real nice day
since winter
I’m staring at a patch of grass
with a confused look on my face
like I should be
doing something outside
a fly lands on the railing
he looks like he doesn’t know
what he’s doing either
it’s spring
it’s...
I am a friend to:
eggs and
the meditative journey of achieving perfect home fries--
rinse
chop
rinse
heat
olive oil on medium until it just begins to spit wisps of smoke
add potatoes, coat in oil and Tony Chachere’s Creole Seasoning
spread out evenly in the pan
let...
I said I had never seen one.
They speak up there, above the cliff.
We hunt them, said old Ted, spitting on the ground,
Chase deer, eat hens maybe even you, he grinned.
Told me his son had cancer and how he hated...
she told me
that she had suffered
from thyroid cancer
explaining
in some detail
that because it was removed
she no longer
had any desire for sex
I asked her
if she still
had a desire for love
but by then
it was getting late
and all the questions
I had left to...
regular twelve-hour shift walk with a clock
in Grimethorpe as security guard round N.U.M. remains, to find key, fit clock,
walk ripped floor tiles, dust, unused coal mounds,
collect evidence to record time, find
key, account for my existence, set
of other keys echoing...
The case can be made that everything we do
is done for distraction
from the most righteous to the most evil
even love is a distraction
or the days of the week, birthdays, etc.
without distraction, it would only be insanity
insanity having her picture...
Warm air rises to the ceiling.
I draw a deep breath,
stretch out my arms
with fingers like feathers.
My wife sees me lean
to the wind, take flight
like a balsa wood plane
thrown by a child.
I glide around the house,
banking through doorways,
pushing air past...
but I never mailed it
what’s the point
the guy is dead
would his carcass crack open a beer
his rusty smith corona clack
beneath skeleton hands
while he searched for a book
of matches to light a cigarette
no
the whole exercise is silly
besides
anyone can write like Bukowski
all...
remains of snowmen
now heaps of ice
hard as bone
No one asked you.
My phone
suddenly speaks
in a mostly
quiet room.
“I’m sorry,
I didn’t quite
get that”
Everyone
looks at me
as I murmur
Shut up Siri
They go where nothing does
not even moonlight
Finding a way to slice the air
and ride the wind
If you see one
bow down in wonder
Touch it not
Their ancient wisdom is delicate
Start with a comfortable room, perhaps
a warm kitchen, then add something odd,
a clock running backwards, a drawer
with a chicken bone wired as a pull.
Mix in a likable character, but make them
a victim, give them a flaw or an ailment,
a...
the window admits light
into the dark room
an empty couch against the wall
a book open on the table
you raise your hand over the coast
where it is carved into pieces
of what once was
your shadow fingers attempting for sky
your whole heart sitting...
Nothing new. Messy room.
Mismatched. Teacher dull.
Hair tangled. Lunch room balk.
Cigar box full of broken chalk.
Missed assignment. Deadline
passed. Theme obscure.
Outclassed. Scratched
albums. No sleeves. Order
wrong. Apologies.
Paid fines. Unread. Librarian
no friend. Cracked spine.
Folded sheet. Bill due last week.
Two reminders. Come on!
Account overdrawn.
Out sick....
there is a realm
I'm often transported to
when reading great poetry
it's one in which the common
becomes more refined
and the simple, more profound
where my words no longer narrate
but are transformed into
a spectrum of light
and where complete, perfect poems
will form as though...
Mom wanted me and Janie
to start school at the same time,
both be kindergarteners,
to take the bus
to and from,
almost like twins.
“That’d be better,” Mom said.
“For Janie.
To be together.
Janie needs her.”
Dad said no.
That wasn’t right.
Janie needed special ed
and special teachers,
maybe even
a...
Hardly a slither in the half-light
yet still gleaming
as if to restore our faith
in shackle and shank, mast
and boom
No harm to look and linger at her pale sickle
in the nautical twilight
So full of kinship as she wrings her hands
for yesterday’s...
Had I seen the sweat pouring down the face
or the abject fear in the eyes, or if
I'd heard the screams of terror
as my hand chased it
through the air,
I probably would not have
swatted dead that poor, tiny fruit fly,
and might...
Last weekend I went to this wedding in San Luis Obisbo, and I didn't even get laid.
It's a funny thing how at every wedding, from Spain to Timbucktu to Nome Alaska, it's always basically theatre in the round. There's...
We call it the cabin this home of ours
Tucked in between the lake and a snaking
Half mile driveway we call a road
Lined with wild berries early August
Slushed with snow mid March
It leads to the road
A road leads to the...
At age 14, I hauled alfalfa hay
for a big bay mare, mucked
her stall while a Philco radio back
in the tack room blew a hurricane
for us both. It was the year when
sound was an ocean of drums,
we would wade into...
arriving early
is being on time
being on time
is being late
being late
a disgrace
and waiting
in the clinic lobby
for my name to be called
is something to do
i’ve lived long
a desert denizen
surrounded
by saguaros
in lower elevations
than these northern hills
where wheat grasses grow
where pronghorn graze
& briefly
after i broke up the ice
in the bird bath
& returned indoors
my heartbeat fast as
a cactus wren’s wings
as i watched
a male cardinal
from my kitchen...
my house has been invaded
by maintenance men
it’s not their fault
but I’m a prisoner here
the bars of social anxiety
keep me from any escape
the house is infested
by men in uniform
the cat and I
are trapped in the bedroom
please send water
and catnip
the noise
the...
on your front lawn. i do not puddle.
i am no slouch. i did not relish
the enchantment of your touch
when you gave me two lumps
of coal to see your angelic face
nor did i feel the tenderness
when you draped this schmattah
around...
strut
your anorexic poem
down the page
like
a Gucci model
down the runway
both
pretending
they don't give a fuck
At the edge of the sidewalk, looking like a black blotch against the snow with two small sticks for legs and a stubborn beak,
a crow was fighting with what looked like a cardboard box.
Curious, as I always am about...
I have heard people say they think in shapes and some in colours and one time a guy told me he thinks in hurricanes and I mean he could hardly get a word out this guy for the storm...
In memory of N. "Rain" Dailey,
Salem, Massachusetts, 1998
I light a photograph on fire,
toss it to the outgoing
winter tide;
flames char
her despicable face
reducing it to ashes.
After a kiss and a swallow,
the beach is clean.
pebbles in this stream
once wild & sharp-tongued, now
a shining example of obedience, conformity
there are dark
waves
all I have to do is jump
in them
and I’ll disappear forever
I won’t drown
I won’t get washed out to sea
just at the moment of submersion
I’ll never come back
I’ve been searching
for this beach
a very
long time
letting go of your hand
I fell into the night sky
high above the streetlight
where you stood
I did not beg you
but I begged the world
not to let me go
& falling I walked away
& I kept falling
inside myself until finally
I fell into...
In the freezing winter of our dissolution,
when his engine block cracked
in the Ford Econoline van, fracturing our sanity,
making our lawn a weeds cemetery,
coyotes saved us with their Hallelujah! chorus.
I heard divinity in their mournful howls,
“Please!
just a half-eaten hot dog bun,
anything...
This is the time
that cannot decide,
a penumbra of seasons
where everything hovers
between either and or,
string lights and marigolds,
and no one bothers
to enunciate correctly.
I am flustered, inarticulate,
prone to dumb conceits;
I don't know what I am,
or where displaced love resides.
I only know...
A trailblazer over brown hairs
a thin cut from
old razor legs
smooth out
by lotion
by rain
by running in the rain
by the dull pounds of my feet
by the treadmill
by how easily I take bait
by the way I miss the beach
and my sister, and...
Lately, each experience feels uncommon.
Living in one room with a pot-bellied stove,
a wooden crate for a bookcase, a rug
of woven rags, my thoughts beat against
the unknown; nothing is ordinary.
It feels wrong to live and not respond.
I paint a boisterous...
to a heart attack,
that greasy, salty
hunk of heaven.
Oh, lowly worker,
be my savior.
Bring me a box,
a bag, a promise
of fries, of fat.
Hand me my
happiness, my hope.
I park close to
your neon church,
engine idling, bask
in the tanning bed
glow of your lights.
Secret sauce,...
write of parlay
we chatted over manners and harbored edges. these things … moved the line into a place of rural contemplation.
blasée,
the feminine rolls her hidden eye—
he marvels at the width and breadth
of the mystery;
he is her ripened fruit, fallen into life;
and she is the shine of the onyx;
her sight is firmly fixed on horizons
yet to appear;
ever the answer, elusively...
I would
give you
my fortune
if I had one.
Until then
these rocks
in my head
are yours.
For example,
this one.
I haven’t left the house in weeks,
limping room to room, forgetting
what I came for, wearing unwashed
the goose-turd green flannel pajamas
I inherited from my mother-in-law’s awful
second husband. On Netflix last night,
a precociously ironic five-year-old
protested, “Of course, I love popcorn!
I’m not an animal!” Then...
today marks the 40th anniversary of her death
I still haven't learned how to play the drums
but the January birds are singing like spring is here
and the coffee is good
and I'm thinking of the person
whose $30 I found in the...
My sister Cape was only two years older than me except for the summer months we were one thin year apart.
And there it is the first sentence which I write similar versions of, maybe identical, once in a while...
i love my son
i love each of my sons
i have loved them for a long time
i love each and all of my sons very much
one day i might tell them this
but its hard to put love into words
and what...
she is a blank canvas
loitering on a Gothic style easel
how many ghosts of painters needed
to finish her shrouded pine trail?
Dad let us stay up
the nights Mom went out
to sing with Sweet Adelines,
saying we were big girls
and could put ourselves to bed.
“You don’t need me,” he said.
“Apparently, your mother
doesn’t either.”
We got in our pajamas
and brushed our teeth,
coming downstairs
to sit...
Lacquer 40x40cm
I have Magoo eyes, narrow slits
carved through bone that filter distractions
and see to the future.
When tapped with a toothbrush
my broken teeth ring with glockenspiel notes,
a harmonious mantra that ushers in peace.
Air enters my lungs like candle wax dripping
and forming...
i don't think about him much
he wasn't very good
and i wasn't either
but marked in red pen
at the top
of my first poem for class
he wrote—
"Watch your use of cliches."
it hurt so freakin bad
to read that
i learned
i shouldn't use them
and now...
Among the litany of lost relics,
a Swiss music box tree stand
that played O du fröhliche, silver
and sent home after the war
and a holy rustic doll house to teach
us the beauty of scrappy origins,
in splinters and old straw.
Our Aunt would point...
When I am old
I said as a child
...
I remember her porch
her cat in there
it was screened in
it was summer
late at night
almost morning
the darkness and
the temperature
just right
I looked at her dad’s easy chair
in the living room
it was so quiet in there
things were going so well
for us
in a...
Into this temper of writers
called poets
I shove my own shoulders
Respectful of the undertaking
I chisel my words
and aim with care between lines
All this poetic lingering
to keep my little sentence
from dashing to the page naked
There are birds here,
the garden has no fence.
My neighbor checks in on the roses
and brushes away lice with soft
working hands.
I'm looking out from the frailbed
through the window
at him, and past
to the mountains further, west.
The strokes of dusk
yet heavy of...
The moon is above me
my toes are cold so I put some shoes on
not because I'm going anywhere
but just because it's harder to keep warm these days
and I realize just now that I love being old -
most of the...
Feels like I have a bag over my shoulder that’s full of yesterday. As I approach Alice’s place it gets not exactly heavy but cumbersome. Alice hasn’t lived here in years and the big house has seen better days....
and gets hung
on the curb
then,
freed by the wind
lands in brown weeds
beside the big ditch.
I kick at a beer can.
the houses seem smaller,
the neighborhood
tired, run down.
brown faced apartments
now grow
instead of green crops,
in the fields
where we played.
I walk back to my...
large pine trees in a bark beetle free forest
after living long lives of capturing carbon
& releasing oxygen & having been a home
to myriad wildlife dreamed of becoming
the paper poets write poetry upon
& poets being another form of wildlife
dependent on...
I stepped outside
my flat I named
the bunker
and there was
a woman
bestial
with insane eyes
surrounded
by the trash
of her own making
syringes
toilet paper
plastic bottles
and a tomato
"you really shouldn’t
be here"
I quietly intoned
"I’m five months pregnant!
You wouldn’t understand!"
She was right about that
Bristol, February 2022
"Flight" an acrylic painting on linen.
poems
are not meant
to
impress you.
they
are written
to
help me
make it
thru the night.
...on a very cold morning.
Should I admit
it all started as a pile of phrases
and a symmetry fetish?
Should I credit
nighthawks and traffic
in the liner notes?
Should I care
that all characters think
they are protagonists?
Should I arrive
in stages, like grief
or a movie franchise?
Should I redraw
the constellations because
Orion...
I am weeping. Please take my tears. It's all I have left. I lost myself. I don't want to find me either. I am dying in a shadow that I keep letting fall. Psalm 23. The sweet comfort of...
Sometimes I just feel like telling a love story with a happy ending, and none of that conflict that people are told they need in stories.
We had enough of it growing up, you see, and I don’t only mean...
“Why don't you write about me!”
she wailed from the bed as he sat
before his desk, lost in reverie.
Without looking up, he replied:
“My dear, it is true, you are
the million-dollar beast —
deserving of a novel, at least!
But she—my beggar, my gypsy,
my thief—was priceless.”
I'll be brief, for we are both busy
and the calendar Gods have laid waste to
that idyllic peace which, if we're honest,
is as foreign to our forebears as to us.
Yet there are moments in our backbreaking
lives on this backbreaking Earth...
I screech and I hoot and I dance on this morning
for sunlight through the windows,
clean, cold air and
a woman.
It seems she’s content to stare into my face,
shower, go to work…
sleeze in the junk of my existence.
(Adding her junk, her...
what I don’t know could fill volumes…
the formula is V = s3 if all of the things
I don’t know were stored inside
a cube shaped terrarium
larger than the Empire State Building
& everything that I do know
is a giant gorilla in...
Near the Mexico border
in the Chisos Mountains of West Texas
they say it is so dark that you can see
the entire Milky Way
without trying
I look to see how many miles the truck has
how many miles it is to Big Bend
calculate...
in the kitchen of the blacksmith
there are only wooden spoons
his hand pauses to examine the sky
silverware falters
tumbles from the clouds
and rains across the cindered floor
beyond this room
the world remains
flat or not
he questions physics
alchemy
the ability of butterflies
to consume entire forests
free...
It is there
when a hole in the road
accommodates the water that carved it
and later, the patch that fills it,
when a mango and stone
accept their mutual need,
when a casket,
like a womb in reverse,
harbors bones
or trembling lips and reddened eyes
try so...
How old was I?
I can’t be sure. You know
How Time can be; how it
Gets stretched, compressed
Torn and torched, but
I know I was young
Trying to fit in again
Before I learned to stop;
I was out with my brothers
Taking pot shots at...
I’d hoped the cruise on the Seine would be the highlight,
but it wasn’t. Nor was the open top bus tour.
We inched up the Eiffel Tower like climbers on Mont Blanc.
It was February 2012, and Europe was in the grip
of...
Lacquer on wooden board 23x25cm
I remember talking to God
the conversation left unfinished
I got up and went
to go about my madness
but there was a moment there with Him
where my breath
was more than breathing
so far we have read the rules
in black and white
in print
meanwhile others translate them in different colors
i read your poetry in the rain
Went to church today.
A sanctuary of a few sitting
and spread out at the pews
in front and behind me.
A man at the left corner
of the platform sits well clad
in front of an organ
with two large, slim hymn books
opened as his...
You are not the trees, nor the clouds
reflected in a black plate pond.
The diving knife breaks the disk
pulls the jelly plant: You are not weak
not alone. Everyone here
is upside down.
His coat of several years—
an acoustic blue and thyme puffer
morphed into kangaroo pockets.
It hordes crumpled store receipts
(with barely visible ink), napkins
taken from Dunkin Donuts and other
things from wherever else he frequents.
His life could be said to reside in the...
It’s been raining since Christmas yet the water is lower than ever before and there’s a newly revealed rock looks like the hood of a car and all sorts of imaginary accidents play consecutively in my head before I...
I will grow my remaining hair long,
and wear slip-on shoes.
I will clear a corner in my house,
set up an easel, and paint badly.
I will squeeze every avocado
at the produce mart.
I will freely offer opinions
at dinner parties,
but I will never...
he let me sell my poetry books
in his comic book shop
one day I wandered in to see if any had sold
they hadn't
Dan, I have something for you, he said
and slid a hundred dollar bill across the table to me
saying, print up...
I rearranged my books
on the shelf today in alphabetical order.
Didn't realize how much time
had passed on arrangements alone.
What about the impatience and shouts
coming from scattered weeks turned to years?
There's something energetic about the surface
of leaves. Still searching for answers.
Doesn't wanna see the next day
As long as his hair and beard
Not shaved. Same old sweater.
Same old fading jeans. Same
Old scent. Same old bad luck
At the ATM. It keeps on telling
Him, but he refuses to believe
The statement. Customer service
Over...
when i am dead
will i search
for a dead goose’s feather
& dip the calamus
into a dead fire’s ashes
& into a dead beehive’s wax
& write a dead poem
on the skin of a dead calf
or on the dried pulp
of a dead tree
&...
he said he was looking for the light
but i thought he said stay with me forever
i remember windflowers & the way
he crossed his arms behind his head
the trickling scent of garden chores
& how four days can be a desert
when there’s...
A small hermit crab
walked on her hand,
she gently cupped
and closed.
Hermit crab
moved house that day,
but still it was
a familiar place.
If hardened eye and calloused hand
are able to perceive
a rim of gold around a plate,
a touch of lace upon a sleeve,
and if the rough and scaly bark
of some gray trunk can be
at one with tender leaves of green
to share...
sunlight
glinting off
piss
Sometimes I think I should stick to fiction. It’s probably easier to remember lies than is it to remember little beads of truth so liquidy they slip through your fingers, but like my stepmother said, ease is for suckers,...
A man whose heart is a time bomb
says leave the house, breathe
some fresh air, meet people,
take chances.
When he was younger he advised
all his friends to follow their instincts,
have a big dream
and expect to have failures.
After spending my life watching
others...
these days
these nights
a hammer pounds against my head
after each death in your sea
my tongue is sour
neck & back needs twisting
no matter how early
or late I close my eyes
you pinned me down yeah
less of you I'm no floating stone
too much of you still I'm...
They’re 85
walk daily
he holding her hand.
She stops frequently
transfixed
by far off.
Fusses
with her scarf
until she’s done.
Even now
he watches
still smitten.
The moon and I have time tonight
to give the year a fair review,
to talk about the times that we
were bloodied, halved, in hiding,
and the light we had to borrow
since we can't emit our own.
The river where I found her...
If a person flies
off a barstool
into the open arms
of the floor
are they not paying
the cost for taking
a shortcut to love?
Falling in love is like swallowing grains of sand
to recover the pebble you skipped across the pond
by your childhood home, the ripples setting in
motion every marvel, every horror of your life;
except the grain touches your tongue, you close
your eyes,...
slowly it diminishes
withdrawing toward the wall and ground
each one taken without thinking
until before you know it
all that is left are the bark scraps
and a dark tarpaulin
flapping about in the wind
I had lunch yesterday
in an apartment
overlooking
the neighborhood
in which I grew up
and now I know how God feels
Myrna was standing in a long line
waiting to checkout when a lady
in her early 60’s dropped her cane
& it turned out she had the same doctor
who replaced her hip as Myrna’s friend,
Lavern, the realtor that sold a house
to the...
of Cain’s Mayonnaise, circa 1975
Powder blue Porsche
both delicate and racy
for small town roads
speed limit sign,
30 miles per hour
certainly restricts this car.
Cotton-soft light blue color
obscures a fast-car image,
streaks from rotary, revs the circle
up to the gasoline pump,
hi-test, of course.
Meek attendant...
We’d catch carp
in the river
put-em on a stringer
walk home
through the alleys
of the boulevard homes
throw them over
the privacy fences
into the backyard pools
their bottom sucking
mouths still gasping
for their muddy water lives
After thinking
not too much
or too long,
I knew I needed
to get a job.
Mike said so, too,
but mostly
so he could buy pot
and get his parents
off his back
after quitting school.
“You can finally pay
for some shit,” he said.
I told him
that wasn’t fair.
He said...
When I look back, I picture a multi-million pound
Formula One pit crew,
making snap decisions at break-neck speed,
but instead of shaving seconds off,
this team’s goal is to add precious time
onto precious lives—
underpaid NHS nurses
and midwives rush around the motionless bodies
of...
There’s a storm already brewing,
asphalt waiting for a shine,
a string of lights all set to spill
and bleed as watercolors
only one of us will see.
But I am wholly unprepared
to be the oldest generation
looking down at where I was,
then up to...
The past continues to
Breathe in me.
Occasionally it is kind,
Tho often it finds me
Breathless.
I glance back and small details
Come alive, with strange power to wound me
Yet again.
How can sunlight in my childhood living room
Continue to light up dead goldfish
Floating in...
Click any image to view full-screen.
I don’t wanna talk to anyone
I wanna have a conversation with
a blackberry bush in summer
I’d say, you sure look like you’re thriving
and the bush would say, thank you, you too
and I’d forget about the winter
and hospitals and commuter madness
I’d...
this is a poem about my mother
that is what this is about
my wonderful mother and how I did not
go see her for years because I was too busy
looking for her in places like san francisco
and houston
she wasn’t there SHE remained
roots-deep...
Last night I dreamt of the perfect opening line
to a poem that would, I had no doubt, piece
back together the crumbling world. It was a line
that drew you in, breathless, that made you drop
everything—coffee, that online shopping cart
one click...
The SPOTLIGHT EFFECT is the psychological phenomenon by which people tend to believe they are being noticed more than they really are. Being that one is constantly in the center of one's own world, an accurate evaluation of how...
was
for a group
of aspiring writers,
the host
asked me to
start off by giving the
audience a writing challenge of sorts,
something
to think about
while i was reading.
i thought
that was stupid
and crazy and counter-productive.
it was
bad enough
having to read my poems,
which
i hate doing,
because...
well...
i
just hate it,
but that’s...
my mother
combed my hair.
i was standing in
the kitchen with my friend Stephen
(it was always Stephen, never Steve)
and
we were
getting ready
to go back out to play.
i don’t
remember how old i was,
i just remember
being sweaty and dirty
and i’d washed my face
and got...
because god was lonely and everybody loves you
when you're six feet underground some say paranoia
is a heightened sense of perception but it's another
type of madness to lose yourself on the ferry
boat wondering who killed buddha
it might have been jesus...
Among the litany of lost relics,
a Swiss music box tree stand
that played O du fröhliche, silver
and sent home after the war
and a holy rustic doll house to teach
us the beauty of scrappy origins,
in splinters and old straw.
Our aunt would point...
there is a nice long beach and lovely views out to sea
the sea that is rising
The rust-colored brick tenements
testify to the city's history,
shifting masses of tenants
absorbed with daily drudgery,
jobs, errands, rendezvous.
Inside each apartment, walls
of mementos, souvenirs, prizes
down the long tube of lost memory.
It's a precipitous fall into desolation,
a short fall into mistakes and error.
Those...
Ours was the turnaround driveway, the one in which mistaken cars corrected themselves, and zoomed back up the street.
My mother said, somebody’s here every time, her voice interested but laced with dread, the dish towel in her hands she shimmied...
I’ve been so long writing what has turned into a novella, hate that fucking word, and like, fuck me dead, I just want to write something without fucking worrying about that fucking carnival. Jesus. What the fuck did I...
You have a warm smile
You are twenty-six years old
You are strawberry blonde like your siblings
You have strong shoulders and a six-pack we envy
You are captain of the football team
You have presence, yet are modest and shy
You make people laugh
You...
There can be a lot of waiting,
but that's ok, he noted
as we leaned into the night
and the sky became a window
to a thousand seasons past.
We named a handful of stars,
and I forbid myself to wonder
which ones were already gone,
or if...
Open Arts Press, LLC, has released a new, free broadside of poems by Leeza Simmons Sikes.
Download your copy of Bitchy Poems now.
Art by Jenn Zed.
I had a big book of haikus
that I lost to homelessness
which is a haiku in itself
but it hurts too much
to write it
I cried when Leonard Cohen died
though I never knew him
thankfully, I know Bob Dylan
will never die
I'll never get...
saw some alien visitation jizz on unsolved TV
close encounters of the filthy kind
with all-you-can-eat UFO porn
vintage 8mm clips
brazilian style
pretty pink
pulsating orbs
shaky cam zooms
focusing on double pen
with ample space spurting
green spunk all over its face
***
After bathing in heavy cream,
I turn down the covers
of my Procrustean bed,
“itching” (as the song goes)
“like a man on a fuzzy tree”
who’s “gonna need an ocean
of calamine lotion.” Today,
an environmental justice blog
posted, “you won’t get a clean reading
from a tree...
EXPLORE
Night Walk
She finds her way down the hillside in the late night dark, making no use of a flashlight habitually held in one hand. If...
